Bethel has four centers for blind children, each with a different focus, including early intervention, primary school, high school, and long-term care. Children come to Bethel from over 35 welfare centers across the country to receive individual care and education with a focus on visual impairment.

Many of Bethel’s preschool children have multiple needs or have developmental delays due to lack of early intervention. When the children arrive at Bethel, each gets an IEP (Individualized Education Program).  LIH Olivia’s Place has teamed up with Bethel to provide assessments in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language therapy to develop goals for the children.

Bethel started a relationship with LIH Olivia’s Place in 2012. At that time, the pro-bono effort was more focused on assessments and training Bethel staff since Bethel had more children with multiple needs (mostly autism). In the last couple of years, Bethel has had many successful adoptions of these children.  Having clinical reports from LIH Olivia’s Place therapists for adoptive families to review has been very helpful in the adoption process.

DongQiang with his new wheelchair.

However, because of the complexity of the needs of many of the Bethel children, many are still waiting to be adopted. To help these children and their caregivers, LIH Olivia’s Place therapists have provided individual occupational and speech therapy sessions since 2015. The children typically attend six or more sessions along with their Bethel caregivers and teachers so they can learn how to help the children make progress at home. Between 2015 and 2016, 11 children have benefited from occupational, speech, and physical therapy from LIH Olivia’s Place. A couple stories are shared below.

Dong Qiang is a Bethel boy who has cerebral palsy in addition to visual impairment. An LIH Olivia’s Place occupational therapist created a postural management report, which helped Bethel determine which wheelchair would be the best fit for him.  She also connected Bethel with the wheelchair’s manufacturer. DongQiang’s quality of life has improved dramatically by having a wheelchair that supports him and is a better fit for his needs.

This year, Wen Yang attended both speech and occupational therapy at LIH Olivia’s Place. Wen Yang has a condition called cortical visual impairment. Children with this condition are visually impaired because the brain has trouble interpreting the information the eyes perceive, and Wen Yang presented with delays often associated with this condition. When he started therapy at LIH Olivia’s Place, he showed very little interest in toys and could only move by scooting across the room. By the third session, he surprised everyone by walking away from the room. During therapy, he also learned to play with toys and is now a much more engaged and happier child. LIH Olivia’s Place therapists were so encouraged by his progress that they continued to work with him for a few additional weeks. Wen Yang is now attending preschool at Bethel and is able to play with other boys his age.

These two stories are just a highlight of some of the progress and success that therapy has brought to the children at Bethel. At Olivia’s Foundation, we aim to help more children at Bethel and other organizations such as Bethel to make strides in their development and live happier and more fulfilling lives.

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Speech and Language Therapy

• The speech-language team, led by Chelsey Contillo, provided 16 hours of direct therapy to children from Bethel, including Yu Lin, as seen in the photo below.
  

  Chelsey Contillo, SLP, Beijing, with YuLin

  

  LIH Olivia’s Place Beijing Speech Therapist Peng Bo works with a child from Bethel

  

   

• They also provided an on-site training on early language development to the therapy and ‘house’ ayis at Shepherd’s Field, followed by 4 evaluations for new children. Thanks to Frangie Yan, Client Care Coordinator, and Speech Therapists PengBo and Tessie for their great input to this day. The feedback from Shepherd’s Field was overwhelmingly positive and they are hoping to have Chelsey and team back again for more training and therapy in the new year.

Physical Therapy

• The PT team, consisting only of Marc Innerhofer, provided 10 hours of direct therapy to a young boy from Morning Star, who is reported to be making great progress under Marc’s guidance. Marc also managed to provide another 12 hours of direct therapy at the clinic to children from Shepard’s Field.

Occupational Therapy    

• OT Eva Ma, alongside PT Marc Innerhofer, provided another 12 hours of direct therapy in a multidisciplinary approach to a group of 4 children in total, with assistance from OT Jessie.  Shepard’s Field was so impressed with our team that they even featured them in their own newsletter!!
  

  Marc Innerfhofer (PT) and Eva Ma (OT) with children from Shepherd’s Field at LIH Olivia’s Place Beijing

• Eva also gavetime to travel all the way to Jinningnan in Inner Mongolia to visit a welfare center with which we have developed a strong partnership. She spent a day there, with translation and assistance from TingTing Yan, Junior Occupational Therapist, to see a number of children. They travelled there and back on the night train and Eva still managed to come to work the next day!!
• Occupational Therapist Sorcha Ni Chadhain (assisted by Occupational Therapists TingTing and Tessie) provided another 16 hours of direct therapy to children from Bethel. Some children were seen in a very effective multi-disciplinary approach alongside the speech team, while others received individual input.

SO……..that’s a total of:

66 hours of direct therapy!!!!!!

1 full day Speech and Language Training

1 full Occupational Therapy consultation

2 very long train rides

and a large number of happy children and carers!

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Marc Innerhofer treats a child at Little Flower Projects in Beijing.

Physical Therapist Marc Innerhofer is providing pro bono therapy services to children at Little Flower Projects  foster center for medically fragile children in Beijing. For two hours each week, he works with 4-5 children who have cerebral palsy or developmental delays.

Zara Kan, Speech-language Pathologist, assessed children with speech-language concerns on a recent Saturday at Bethel, a Beijing organization that supports blind and visually-impaired orphans in China. In addition, Zara visited Angel Mom, a Beijing organization dedicated to orphans who require medical treatment, and consulted with several of their staff.

In Shanghai, Occupational Therapist Eva Steins works weekly with Ze, a 10-year-old boy with severe cerebral palsy.  Although Eva does not speak Chinese fluently, she has a great resource in our volunteer interpreter Emily Yan.  According to Ze’s mom, he has been gaining good hand function through these sessions.

Physical therapist Veronica Bosch provides monthly consultation to Xin and his parents on how to maintain his level of activities.  Xin is less than two years old and is diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy.

Fei is one and half years old with developmental delay.  After two months of intensive therapy with Physical Therapists Veronica

Marla Balzer works together with Fei and her ayi.

Bosch and Marla Balzer, she is able to crawl, pull to stand up, and even take a few steps with assistance.  Now Fei only needs monthly sessions, while she continues to build her motor skills with a home program.

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